


The Rendezvous

by divinecomedienne



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 16:59:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10140491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divinecomedienne/pseuds/divinecomedienne
Summary: Simmons is late for her rendezvous with Daisy in the Framework. Well, she had to go and check on Fitz, didn't she?





	

A loud clanging noise woke Daisy from an unpleasant dream involving Hive. She lifted her head from where it was resting on her keyboard and cracked her stiff neck. It took her a few seconds to realise that the clanging noise was someone banging on the back doors of the van.

‘Simmons! Is that you?’ she called out croakily.

‘Yes, it’s me.’ The voice was unmistakable, although it sounded a little shaky.

Daisy opened the doors and Simmons climbed inside. She looked pale and exhausted.

‘Thank God! It’s been hours! I was beginning to get worried. Where have you been? We were supposed to meet right away,’ Daisy scolded, pulling her friend in for a hug.

‘I know. I’m sorry, Daisy. My avatar was out in a cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I guess she—or rather I, I suppose—was in hiding for some reason. No phone reception, TV, radio or anything. Thank goodness I did have a car, so I drove straight back to the city. But then I— I just had to go and quickly check that Fitz was all right…’ she trailed off, staring at the floor.

‘Hey, that’s OK. That’s understandable,’ soothed Daisy, ushering her to a chair. ‘But what’s the matter?’ She scrutinised Simmons’ face: her lips were pressed together into a tight line and she was blinking rapidly as if trying not to cry.

A sickening jolt of fear hit Daisy in the stomach like a physical blow. ‘Fitz is OK, right, Jemma? Jemma?’

Simmons exhaled and looked up. ‘Yes, he’s fine. Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. He’s better than fine actually. In this world, he’s some kind of billionaire tech mogul. It was easy to find him.’ She gave a little snort of mirthless laughter. ‘His name’s on top of the tallest skyscraper in town: “Fitz Systems.” He was just coming out when I arrived, surrounded by bodyguards, of course. He got into a Rolls…’ She paused again.

‘And then?’ Daisy prompted, confused.

‘I followed the car. It drove out to the suburbs, a really swanky area. Stopped in front of some great pink mock-colonial mansion. Honestly, I thought he had better taste.’ Simmons threw her eyes ceilingwards for a moment: the habitual ‘Oh, Fitz’ expression that Daisy knew well but here accompanied with a melancholy sigh the cause of which she couldn’t fathom.

‘Anyway, you might as well just watch this video I made.’ Simmons blushed slightly as she handed over her phone. Under normal circumstances, Daisy would have cracked a ‘creepy stalker’ joke, but there was something so fragile about Jemma tonight, she was so obviously scarcely holding herself together, that she took the device without a word.

And then she understood. The video was taken from quite far away, through a car window and a tall iron fence, but even so, she could clearly make out Fitz—his hair was a little different and he was wearing a tuxedo, but it was undoubtedly him—standing in the driveway of a huge and, yes, quite ugly house. In his arms he held a small girl with blonde, curly hair who seemed to be pulling on his nose and, even from this distance, Daisy could see he was laughing.

After a moment, a slim woman in a long green, shimmery dress emerged from the house and kissed Fitz on the cheek. She took the child from him and kissed her too, before setting her down on the ground. The little girl scampered indoors as Fitz took the woman’s arm and they set off down the driveway towards a waiting car, talking animatedly. As they drew nearer to the camera, Daisy just had time to take in how pretty the woman was, graceful and high cheekboned, before the video cut off.

‘I suppose they were going to some sort of fancy event. I didn’t hang around to find out.’ Simmons’ voice was measured but her eyes were brimming. ‘God, I’m so silly!’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t know why I’m upset. I should be glad he’s happy, and anyway it’s not even real for Christ’s sake!’ She wiped her cheeks furiously with the heels of her hands.

‘Shh, shh, come here.’ Daisy leaned over and hooked an arm around Simmons’ shoulders. ‘You two have obviously just never met in this world, so he’s making do with second best. That chick is way less hot than you are, and it goes without saying she’s not even, like, a quarter as smart.’

Simmons sniffed and gave a wan smile. ‘Fitz wouldn’t be with her if she wasn’t smart,’ she observed glumly.

‘OK, but no one else is Jemma Simmons smart. Who the hell is she anyway?’ Daisy released Simmons’ shoulder and scooted her chair over to her computer where she began tapping away rapidly at the keyboard.

‘Oh, leave it, Daisy. What does it matter? I don’t really want to know. Please stop,’ Simmons pleaded in a tired voice.

But now Daisy was grinning. ‘Actually, I take back what I just said,’ she crowed. ‘There’s a very good chance that woman is, well, at least a quarter as smart as you are: she’s Fitz’s twin sister.’

Simmons stared at her in goggle-eyed astonishment. ‘What?’ was all she could say.

‘Yeah, Isla Hammond, née Fitz. Born Glasgow, Scotland, August nineteenth, 1987. I’m looking at her Wikipedia page right now.’

‘But— but Fitz doesn’t have any siblings, let alone a twin. It’s always been just him and his mum.’

‘Well, in this universe, things are obviously different.’ Daisy’s eyes were still scanning her computer screen. ‘Oh, wait, look, here’s a news report from the Fitz Systems tenth anniversary gala dinner. That must be the fancy do the two of them went off to tonight.’ She spun her monitor round to face Simmonds and hit play. An image of a large, colonnaded building lit with purple floodlights filled the screen. People in evening dress were milling about on the steps and around the fountains in front as the flashes from paparazzi cameras flared around them. Daisy held down fastforward until the view of the building was replaced with a medium close-up of two people; one was Fitz, the other the woman in green—Isla—and now, close to, Daisy could see how similar they were: the same pale skin, full mouth and earnest blue eyes. She heard Simmons catch her breath.

‘You two have always been close then, have you?’ an unseen interviewer was asking the two Fitzes.

‘Oh, yes. We’ve never really been apart, have we, Leo?’ Isla’s voice was less hesitant than her brother’s and perhaps a touch more Americanised, but there was a similar cadence to it.

‘No, not really,’ agreed Fitz. ‘Not that we remember anyway. Our parents did apparently break up for a few months when we were babies—'.

‘Oh, yeah, right,’ Isla cut him off. ‘Our dad moved out and took me with him, leaving Leo with Mum, but luckily they got back together and the two of us grew up more-or-less inseparable. When Leo applied to MIT to do his PhD, I couldn’t stand the thought of him being in another country, so I applied too.’

‘Good thing she did,’ chimed in Fitz, ‘‘cause it was while we were there that we set up Fitz Systems.’

‘And the rest, as they say, is history,’ finished the interviewer. ‘Of course, you’re married now, Dr Hammond, and you have a daughter, Heather. How about you, Dr Fitz? Any plans to settle down?’

Fitz looked at the ground and the tips of his ears reddened. Apparently being a major celebrity hadn't remedied his shyness. ‘Yeah, well, I’d like to,’ he said after a moment, ‘but I haven’t, you know, met the right girl yet.’

Daisy shot a glance at Simmons out of the corner of her eye. She was smiling.


End file.
